Back with my boy

So, father son bonding can still happen in the age of 'Call of Duty, 5: World at War.' Yes, somehow I pried my son away from his beloved Xbox live to engage in a very easy hike up in the Sierras. He hasn't been terribly interested, but was willing to indulge me.

I was looking for the road to Phantom Spires but couldn't find it. First, I accidently turned into a Caltrans station. Then, I took a dirt road up to a plateau. The road was a little aggro for my Volvo, so I stopped. After lunch, my son and I figured we'd just hike up a bit to see where the road led. Turns out that it stopped about 100 feet further and became the Pony Express Trail! Yep, the real thing.

Anyhow, would took a leisurely stroll (or so it seemed to me) for about a mile or so until our path was stopped by fallen trees and foliage. Actually, that's not exactly true. Really, I was ready to bushwhack and my son wasn't. I continued up to a lovely 30 foot waterfall. Lots of leg scratches, but worth it. We were at about the same height as Sugarloaf and had a great view.
We were supposed to go skateboarding but instead he wanted to go straight home, where we ended up (you guessed it) playing CoD5 together.

He let me use his mod controller, so I won!

A great day.

Castle's winter spankage

Back to Castle. I bought some used Koflach Viva Soft double boots of a craigslist ad for $25. Since they are $300 shoes I thought this was a great deal. Gotta love CL.

Anyway, wanted to try them out in the snow. I knew that the mountain would be in deep snow, but hoped the major paths would be stamped down and stable - which was mostly true. I figured the upper slope might be icy, and brought crampons and an ice axe. What a joke.

I got a late start and didn't arrive in the Boreal parking lot until about 10:30. Bad for two reasons: The first is that scads of weekend hiker, snowshoer, and grandma types were all over the trail. Far worse however was the temperature. It had risen to like 60 degrees. The snow was very soft. Even one step off the center of the trail was a thigh deep post hole. The snow itself was glucky and yielding.

As such, it was like climbing 2000 feet of sand. Can you say aerobic?

As you can see, getting to the saddle was a grunt - the snow was unkind and I was unprepared - no snowshoes. I went about 1/2 way up the ridge to the summit, but the trail was basically non-existent and i was post-holing to my knees and thighs. Essentially, I got spanked.

This is great because it motivated me to train like a psycho. I'm getting in 600 calorie workouts 4-5 days a week now. By June I'm looking to do Whitney in a day.

Next year is my time to winter climb for real. I'm hoping to climb in the Palisades if I can find a partner. Too hard for my boy.

Until next time.